Kansas Steals NCAA Title from Memphis in Over-Time

When kids start playing basketball, the one thing they all seem to hate doing is practicing free-throws. They’d rather play one-on-one or the time honored game of “horse.” Tuesday night, the Kansas Jayhawks trailed the Memphis Tigers in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship by 9 with 2:12 left to play. By rights, the game was over, but Memphis forgot to make their foul shots, and Kansas stole the title.

To give the young men from Memphis their due, they managed to get to the final, and they had a lead of 9 points over a Kansas Jayhawks team that earned the right to be there. Memphis was down by 5 at the half, and Derrick Rose (start measuring him for an NBA uniform) caught fire to score 14 of his side’s 16 points in a nine-minute run in the second half.

But Kansas guard Mario Chalmers pointed out, “I mean, all along people have been talking about how bad a free-throw shooting team they are. Coach [Bill] Self [of Kansas] told us to foul a couple of their worst shooters.” Chris Douglas-Roberts, who was tied for the team lead in free throw percentage at a rather puny 71.2% for the season, missed three in the final 75 seconds. And Kansas started shooting and hitting 3-pointers.

Despite everything going wrong at the foul line, Memphis was still ahead by three with 2.1 seconds to go. Then, the basketball gods frowned mightily upon the Tigers. Mario Chalmers found a way to hit nothing but net from above the key. The game was tied, and in overtime, Memphis had to do without Joey Dorsey, who had fouled out.

The Chalmers’ shot, as it will no doubt be known in NCAA lore, took the momentum that Kansas had been building and leveled the morale of Memphis. Before it was over, Kansas had a 75-68 lead to win its first NCAA title in 20 years. And they made 14 of 15 free throws in winning it.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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